Bryan Cranston and Anthony Mackie play civil rights icons in ‘All the Way’

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Bryan Cranston as President Lyndon B. Johnson in HBO’s “All the Way,” a behind-the-scenes look at Johnson’s tumultuous first year in office in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle

Bryan Cranston as President Lyndon B. Johnson in HBO’s “All the Way,” a behind-the-scenes look at Johnson’s tumultuous first year in office in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle

That’s how President Lyndon B. Johnson explains his support for the Civil Rights Act to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in HBO’s “All the Way,” premiering Saturday.

Based on the play by Robert Schenkkan, the film, starring Bryan Cranston as LBJ and directed by Jay Roach, follows the stormy year from President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963 to Johnson’s victory over Barry Goldwater and the passage of the landmark legislation in 1964.

Cranston won a Tony Award for playing the role on Broadway after the end of his “Breaking Bad” run. The actor describes the 36th president from Texas as “a raconteur, funny and engaging. He was generous. He was irascible and cold and vicious and mean.”

Cranston adds, “There was a dubious nature to him as well. If he thought something was for the greater good, then it was OK.”

The greater good in this case was the Civil Rights Act, which had been put forth by JFK but was languishing in Congress. After the assassination, there was something of a honeymoon period in the country, and Johnson saw an opening to get the law passed. To do so, he would have to twist arms and get some people onboard who didn’t normally trust Southern politicians.

The most important of those was King, played here by Anthony Mackie. The actor says he had turned down the chance to play the civil rights icon a number of times before “because I never saw the Dr. King that I knew.”

“A lot of people think of Dr. King as meek or passive,” says Mackie. “But he was never passive in any way. He never waited for anything to come to him. He was the attacker.”

Growing up in New Orleans, Mackie says his father would tell him about the civil rights leader, while his older brother, who attended King’s alma mater of Morehouse College, would also pepper him with information about him. So getting it right was personal for Mackie, who says he did most of his school papers on King.

The actor was worried that he didn’t look much like King, but Roach convinced him that the performance would overcome the visual. The director — who has done comedies, such as “Austin Powers” and “Meet the Parents,” and political dramas, such as HBO’s “Game Change” and “Recount” — worked with Cranston on last year’s “Trumbo” about the famed and larger-than-life Hollywood writer.

Mackie, who calls Cranston’s performance “remarkable” in “All the Way,” says “LBJ was such an outlandish character. Someone once said, ‘The 11 most interesting people I ever met are Lyndon B. Johnson.’ ”

Cranston, who received an Oscar nomination for “Trumbo,” says it was important to capture Johnson’s complexities and contradictions.

“For a man who was so ambitious and accomplished so much, in many ways there was a significant amount of pain in his life,” he says.

He would sometimes take that pain out on his wife, Lady Bird, played by Oscar-winner Melissa Leo. Claudia Johnson — nicknamed Lady Bird by her nanny — used part of her inheritance to help launch LBJ’s political career, and she shrewdly worked in the background making them millionaires.

“She was a very intelligent woman, who knew when to speak up when she had to and keep her mouth shut,” says Leo.

Having taught in poor schools after college, the 36th president was more sympathetic to the plight of African-Americans than the Dixiecrats of the Democratic Party, who had been blocking civil-rights progress.

“It had already been 100 years since the Emancipation Proclamation, and yet there were still Jim Crow laws, actual legal segregation, separate drinking fountains and lunch counters and bathrooms and different sections in movie theaters,” observes Cranston. “It is astonishing to me when you think of how we as a country mistreated other human beings.”

In “All the Way,” the folksy Johnson tries to convince King of his sincerity for the Civil Rights Act by telling him of the humiliation and injustice suffered by two black employees of his who couldn’t use white-only restrooms in the South.

King’s reservations about Johnson were expected. In Congress, only liberal Democrats like Sen. Hubert Humphrey, played by Bradley Whitford, had backed civil rights legislation. When Johnson chose him to be his running mate in 1964, it was partly so the Minnesota senator would keep the progressive wing of the party in line.

The Texas president, though, would also disregard Humphrey’s advice and humiliate him by making him stand outside the bathroom with the door open while he sat on the toilet.

“Johnson is such a silverback, dominant male that Humphrey got bowled over in this situation, but he was a very substantial guy,” says Whitford, who won an Emmy for “The West Wing.” “But he was very committed to civil rights and was an insistent moral voice.”

Whitford, who grew up in a Quaker household, believes “All the Way” shows the significance of compromise.

“While there is a lot of cynicism about politics today, it is a way to create a moral vision,” he says. “These imperfect men — King and Johnson — changed the world and made the lives of a lot of people tangibly better. You don’t just get a democracy. You make it every day, and that involves compromise.”

Mackie agrees. “Lyndon B. Johnson and Dr. King both realized they each had to give something up to achieve what they wanted.”

While “All the Way” may be history, it also is part of the current times.

“Everything Johnson was dealing with in 1964 — all the racial problems, Social Security, Medicare, voting rights — are all the discussions we’re having today,” points out Mackie. “We’re definitely living in the age of what was going on then.”

Cranston says he couldn’t have found Johnson without doing his signature Southern drawl.

At this point, he begins sounding like LBJ. “He was a good fellow, and I enjoyed playing the hell out of him, but it’s time to move on.”

Rob Lowman began at the L.A. Daily News working in editing positions on the news side, including working on Page 1 the day the L.A. Riots began in 1992. In 1993, he made the move to features, and in 1995 became the Entertainment Editor for 15 years. He returned to writing full time in 2010. Throughout his career he has interviewed a wide range of celebrities in the arts. The list includes the likes of Denzel Washington and Clint Eastwood to Kristin Stewart and Emma Stone in Hollywood; classical figures like Yo Yo Ma and Gustavo Dudamel to pop stars like Norah Jones, Milly Cyrus and Madonna; and authors such as Joseph Heller, John Irving and Lee Child. Rob has covered theater, dance and the fine arts as well as reviewing film, TV and stage. He has also covered award shows and written news stories related to the entertainment business. A longtime resident of Santa Clarita, Rob is still working on his first more-than-30-year marriage, has three grown children (all with master's degrees) and five guitars.